Keep It Usable’s independent research into the UK travel market provides insights into the current UK travel consumer and the opportunities that exist for travel companies to increase their success in 2016.

Our research, conducted in the UK with 264 holidaymakers, aged 20-70 years old, helps you to better understand current and future UK travel consumers: which are their favourite destinations, how often they travel, who do they go with, how do they book, who are their preferred brands and what are the growing trends to watch out for in 2016.

Need help or advice?

If you’re curious about any of the above and how ux can help you to create a more successful product, contact our experts for free, friendly, no-ties advice.

Other posts you may find interesting:

A few days ago, the new Twitter CEO took the brave decision to change the ‘star-shaped’ favourite button (one of the Twitter’s most popular features) with a heart, which is in the companies opinion, a more universal and expressive symbol. However, he seems to have missed a very important point: more expressive for who?

Following the decision a virtual riot arose, particularly among the most loyal twitter users.

As often happens online, features and symbols like stars, hearts or emoticons fill the lack of a physical and tangible interaction, which are crucial for users in order to properly express themselves.

Each social network has different features and characteristics and attracts a different kind of user with different aims and purpose. Social networks are sort of ‘clans’, with different rules and habits, and users choose to become members of one rather than another because of those differences. For twitter users, the star was one of those differences that made the social network unique.And as it happens, amongst members of the Twitter clan, they developed a shared ‘meanings code’, a sort of distinctive mark that concurs they are feeling part of the same community. The star was part of the code and users are complaining because they want it back.

What did the star-shaped favourite button mean for users?

Originally, the star was meant as a feature to ‘favourite’ other users tweets, but with the passing of the time, people assigned it various different meanings and uses.

It wasn’t just a simple favourite for users, it has also become for the most, a bookmark for interesting or captivating tweets that users haven’t the time to read immediately, a “this could be interesting and I’ll read it later”. The star also meant “I favourite your tweet, but I don’t like it enough to retweet it”.

Moreover, users used the star for acknowledging that they’ve read someone else’s tweet in the absence of comments.

It happened in a similar way with the hashtag, in that users introduced it for the first time and then Twitter adopted it. Users have generated their own meaning and interpretation of a feature, generating a different direction than what was originally meant by the designers.

Why are habitual Twitter users so strongly against the new ‘heart-shaped’ like button?

First of all, as already said, users on Twitter don’t need a specific feature for liking a tweet; if they really like something, they will retweet it. Secondly, in the users’ mind, the heart-symbol is more related to an emotional and intimate sphere that doesn’t fit a platform like Twitter, but rather a social network like Instagram, where users tend to share more personal images. Thirdly, people don’t like change. Change is stressful, people love their habits, the safety and ease of their routine and they struggle to accept novelties.

Why do Twitter users feel so lost?

The Twitter CEO’s choice, made to encourage a warm and easy welcome to new users that could struggle to understand the meaning of the ‘star feature’, is threatening the loyalty of the existing users.

In ‘real life’ the context is crucial in order to understand and evaluate a situation. If you think about it, your behaviour is modulated by the context in which you are interacting with someone; for example, you will use a different tone of voice or type of language when talking with someone in a church compared to a pub, because you can tell from the context how to behave and adapt in a socially acceptable way.

In the ‘virtual life’ the only clue that you can catch from the digital context is the structure and the features of a website, an app, or in this case, a social network.

The star-shaped button has been fundamental in defining the ‘mood’ of interactions on Twitter; and now users feel lost, they don’t know how to behave, and above all they are concerned they will be misunderstood.

The meaning of a symbol can’t be considered outside the context in which it is immersed, particularly online where the context is ephemeral and intangible and the design is the only clue that can tell users how to behave.

Moreover, in the online environment, the meaning of symbols and features is generated directly from the interaction between users and from the use that people make of them; there are no universal meanings, not even in the global universe of the Internet.

For this, in online contexts, it is crucial to give up any kind of assumptions and strictly observe the users experience, because designers create layouts, but users give them sense.

We’re very proud to announce that we’ve won the WIBA award for best online/digital business in the North West! WIBA stands for women in business awards and representing Keep It Usable was our founder, Lisa Duddington.

“I’m incredibly proud of Keep It Usable and everything we continue to achieve.

Right from the beginning, huge brands were trusting us with their projects and it’s testament to our knowledge, passion and skill.As for women in business and male dominated industries? I say go for it! Yes I’m often the only woman in a room full of techy guys but it doesn’t bother me one bit, my opinion is respected because I know what I’m talking about and being a woman brings the advantage of seeing things a bit differently, especially in terms of the customer.”

We are now a finalist in the national wiba awards which will be held next month.

The photo below shows all the North West winners. Congratulations and best of luck to everyone!

Having just returned from MoneyConf, we’re feeling incredibly excited about the future of banking, currencies, payments and FinTech. The next 10 years will be a game changer for the banking and payments industries. It will also be a transformational time for consumers who will see the gradual disappearance of physical money, replaced with virtual wallets and mobile payments.

Banks – Innovate or fail

However if you work in a bank, you may have more cause for concern than excitement. Where other industries are innovating, some banks have only just woken up to the importance of digital and many are already rapidly falling behind. It’s not surprising when you consider that their major sources of income are based on experiences that are poor for the customer. Yes there is a reason why they don’t warn you when you’re near to going into your overdraft or there’s a higher interest current account that they could switch you over to.

Figures from Harvard Business School predict that based on past statistics, only 8% of the banks around today will still be here in 10 years. Why? Because they will fail to innovate. Innovation doesn’t make the corporate agenda because in good times, ‘there’s no reason for innovation’ and in bad times ‘there’s no money for innovation’. New startups that are more focussed on building technology that helps customers and gives them a better experience will have increased adoption. If banks fail to innovate themselves, they’ll need to look to buying out some of the technology that startups are bringing to the table, or risk being left behind.

Mobile will continue to grow

However, customers still don’t trust mobile…

Need to focus on Omnichannel

Brands will need to focus even more on the whole customer journey across devices and the physical store.

Virtual wallets are coming!

This is one we’ve been waiting for. No need to carry cash around with you anymore. No need to even carry cards with you anymore. Mobile payments have arrived and in 10 years time expect them to be fully mainstream. If you’re a purse manufacturer you may want to focus on handbags in the future!

The problem for merchants and consumers will be too much choice.

And customer education, as people aren’t familiar with wallets yet.

Mobile payments using NFC

For physical retailers, the future of POS payments will be mobile payments using NFC to make the transaction quick and simple.

Contactless payments have grown rapidly over the last few years, with massive growth last year that’s set to continue. With consumers growing used to this new behaviour (if you’re in London you’re even more familiar with contactless through your daily use of the tube) using NFC to pay via your mobile seems to be a natural next step. We can expect those technologies that work alongside the user’s existing learned behaviour to be adopted more quickly and potentially more successfully.

Digital money is here

Bitcoin. Have you heard of it? Controversial but this digital currency could well be the future. Bitcoin was created in 2009 and behaves just as a physical currency does. It can be bought and sold, transferred to others, it can go up and down in value and it can be used to purchase goods. In the future, we may well be paying for things using Bitcoins.

A cash-less future?

It looks like the future may well be one that doesn’t involve physical cash. Payments will be so easy to make virtually that we may find physical coins and notes gradually disappear. Future generations may only understand money in the form of digits. How do you feel about this?

With the increasing adoption of mobile wallets and mobile payments, we’ll also see the disappearance of card payments and with it, the need to own a wallet.

And beyond mobile payments, expect to see biometrics coming into effect. Can you imagine paying for your coffee using just a scan of your fingerprint? Or your eyes?

Will banks still exist or will peer 2 peer replace them? How will banks innovate to keep up with the rapid technology startups are bringing to the table?

We’re super excited to announce that we’ve been shortlisted for another award! This time it’s for the Online Business Award (Salford Business Awards), which recognises organisations that have effectively used technology to create a significant difference.

Ricardo says “We’re very proud to have been shortlisted for the online award. We continually make a significant difference to our clients businesses, helping top brands within the UK and internationally to be more successful online. We use a unique combination of highly specialist skills coupled with our many years of experience to improve online user experience and conversion. We’ve also been busy pioneering our own software. It’s great to be recognised locally with such a fantastic award.”

Have you ever thought about the number of times you check social networks? Is it a few times a week? Once a day? Seventy-two percent of online adults use social media and the average user spends 23 hours a week on social media – that’s the equivalent of a part time job!

We are living in the social media era.

– 2 billion worldwide social network users

– 500 million tweets sent every day

– 70 million images uploaded on Instagram every day

– 300 hours of video uploaded per minute on YouTube

What makes us so addicted?

Social networks are an extension of ourselves.

Communication occurs during interaction, and our need to be connected and interact with others is universal and unavoidable; hidden behind this social instinct there is the even more powerful necessity of giving sense and meanings to our world. Being in touch with others, allows us to create social universes made of symbols – e.g. language, numbers, gestures, emoticons 🙂 – and social rules, which are shared and understood by everybody.

Social validation is an important part of being human. A Facebook ‘Like’ or a Twitter ‘Favourite’ is a social signal that makes us feel good.

Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is a large driver of social network use, particularly for those aged thirty and under. Sixty-seven percent of users say that they’re afraid they’ll “miss something.” Dr Stephanie Rutledge explains:

We have a brain wired for collaboration, compromise, restraint, comprehending and managing one’s place in shifting-alliances. We notice when others are doing something that excludes us. It will trigger some primitive survival responses. People under 30 are still in the period when they are establishing their own lives, developing personal and professional identities, becoming economically viable (creating alliances), etc. Their focus will of necessity be social.

Ego needs a platform to showcase itself and social networks are the perfect answer. Eighty percent of our online conversations are self-disclosure, compared to 30 to 40 percent of offline conversations. We live in a ‘Me’ society with an obsession of the ‘self’ that drives us to update our status and tag ourselves in photos (but only those that we look good in of course).

Social comparison and self esteem increase. People compare themselves to assess feelings, strengths, weaknesses, abilities and perspectives. Having your social connections reaffirmed makes you feel good.

Brain chemistry. Social networks are physically addictive as well as psychologically. A study from Harvard University showed that self-disclosure online fires up a part of the brain that also lights up when taking an addictive substance, like cocaine.

Communication is to be human

One cannot not communicate (Watzlawick & the Palo Alto School, 1967) is one of the reasons adopted in social and clinical psychology. The social world is socially constructed through interactions between people: roles, rules, categorisations, stereotypes, normality, deviance are results of human sharing, the outcome of our being humans.

Social networks have the power to amplify this human nature. They have broken the barriers of distance and time, of presence and visibility. They expand the possibilities of sharing and playing identities. They fulfil the most deeply human need of finding a psychological distinctiveness and self-definition in a social context.

They become stages where observing, examining, take part to the “social staging”; the script interpreted is made by interactional dynamics, social rules, emotions and so on;

An extension of our offline world

Facebook profiles become teenagers’ “virtual bedrooms” (Hodkinson and Lincoln, 2008), meant as virtual environments to be personalised, to meet peers and play at adulthood. Several studies demonstrate that users experience the interaction on social media as an extension of their offline social relationships, as a supplement to their real life, and not as a substitution of it.

Social networks are an extension of our most deep psychological instinct, being social

Social networks become stages with no time and no space.

In conclusion, “all media are extensions of some human faculty” (Marshall McLuhan). Social networks are an extension of our most deep psychological instinct, being social.

We’re incredibly excited to announce that we’ve another award in our midst! This time it’s our founder, Lisa, who has been shortlisted for the North West Women in Business awards (WIBA) STEM category. STEM aims to recognise women who work in the traditionally male dominated areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Lisa says “I’m very proud to be representing women in the STEM category. There’s still an under representation of women in the digital and tech scene. Certain sectors I work in are highly male dominated and I would love to see more women with the belief that they can enter these sectors.”

Best of luck Lisa!

We’d also like to give recognition to the amazing work of Ladies That UX. A group set up by Lizzie Dyson and Georgie Bottomley to support women who work in the UX field. Thank you for your continued support!

2015 is looking to be a really exciting year for innovation. We get excited by new technology and the challenges that brings, especially with regards to designing for challenging smaller screens – how you can engage users and showcase information without sacrificing the experience? Here are some technologies and trends we’d recommend keeping your eye on in 2015.

1. Wearables

Wearables are becoming big business and the growing trend will continue to thrive in 2015, particularly in fitness, fashion and health. More affordable wearables are likely to hit the market and will bring wearables to the masses.

2. Apple watch

A handful of companies such as Google, Samsung and Sony have launched wearables in the form of watches. This year, will see the Apple watch hit the market which will disrupt and put smart watches on the map. This will have huge implications for how we communicate, interact and consume information. The potential is vast, particularly for connectivity and health.

3. Digital health

2015 will be the year that healthcare finally wakes up to digital! Wearables that can monitor everything from measuring steps in fitness to improving your hearing. Rings, hearing aids, headphones and much more will hit the market. Could we even see the first digital implant…?! There is already a digital pill.

4. Internet of things

From controlling lighting and heating, TVs, appliances and even connecting your body. We will use technology to increasingly monitor and intelligently improve our lives. The promise of major connectivity and intelligence is exciting and we expect to see this technology grow rapidly in 2015.

5. Major growth in mobile e-commerce

Mobile will be huge in 2015 and will continue to disrupt e-commerce. 8 in 10 smartphone users use their phones at some point during the purchase process and with mobile screens increasing in size, their popularity is projected to grow enormously in 2015, meaning users will consume even more data on mobile. Mobile growth is larger than tablet with 186% average growth in sales via mobile compared to 131% in tablet e-commerce. Read our e-commerce insights for 2015 >

6. Mobile wallets

2015 will be the year that contactless payment methods like NFC (near-field communications) really start to take off. Larger banks are likely to offer NFC payments via smartphone by the end of 2015 with 5% of NFC enabled mobiles being used to make contactless payments.

7. Omni-channel retail experience

The future of retail will be a seamless approach to the consumer experience through all available shopping channels, i.e. mobile devices, computers, physical stores, television, radio, mail, etc. Omni-channel retail represents an experiential change for the connected consumer as all touchpoints with a brand become one. Example: Customer browses products online then when they enter a physical store they get these products retargeted to them as ads or offers in-store. Read about how digital tools will change the in-store shopping experience >

8. Usability

With the rapidly changing technological landscape and continuing explosion of digital into more and more products, it has never been so important to focus on user needs, psychology and behaviour. Great usability will no longer be a nice-to-have, it will be mandatory in order to create a successful product. There’s never been a more important time to Keep It Usable.

We’ve been getting a bit of a name for ourselves within the UX scene based on the quality of our work and our passion for all things UX. So when Peter Beare and Gavin Allanwood gained approval to create a new UX book they invited us to take part. The book covers an overview of the whole User Experience process, from research with users (our section – chapter 2) through to design and build.

It’s a book that you can easily dip in and out of and is particularly beneficial to those new to UX who need a higher level understanding of the process, tools and techniques that are used to create a good user experience.

“By putting people at the centre of interactive design, user experience (UX) techniques are now right at the heart of digital media design and development. As a designer, you need to create work that will impact positively on everyone who is exposed to it. Whether it s passive and immutable or interactive and dynamic, the success of your design will depend largely on how well the user experience is constructed.

User Experience Design shows how researching and understanding users expectations and motivations can help you develop effective, targeted designs. The authors explore the use of scenarios, personas and prototyping in idea development, and will help you get the most out of the latest tools and techniques to produce interactive designs that users will love.

With practical projects to get you started, and stunning examples from some of today s most innovative studios, this is an essential introduction to modern UXD.”

We particularly like the layout and style of the book as there is an emphasis on imagery and real world case studies that makes the content really easy to consume and particularly engaging.

Below, you’ll see our user experience machine poster. If you’d like an electronic copy of this, you’re more than welcome to download a copy. We also have a few printed copies – if you’d like one just get in touch.

Look out for our next book!

We’ve also been invited to appear in another ux book out later this year, so keep your eyes peeled for that one, which will have a more academic slant.

This months Keep It Usable guest interview is with our friend Fritz Von Runte.
Fritz is the Head of design for our client On The Beach and we had the great pleasure of working with the team on a recent project.

“I would go to the lab with Keep It Usable in the morning, and in the afternoon I’d be writing tickets to change things – in the best Agile practice.”

Could you tell our readers a bit about your background and your role at On The Beach?

I started my career in Art Direction almost 20 years ago, working for the advertising industry. I was always interested in “New Media” and eventually I decided to shift my career, to focus on web. Then, 7 years ago I made my masters in User Interface Design and specialised in UX.
At On The Beach I wear a couple of hats. I’m the head of a design team of four professionals. We try to maintain a certain design language throughout the company, with consistence and on brand. It’s a tough job because it’s a big company, with many colleagues, many requests, and many design problems, all in need of our solutions. Plus, it’s one of the most successful online travel agencies in the UK market. It’s a massive responsibility. I am also responsible for designing the experiences our users will have, not only in the web but also offline, via our flight and hotel vouchers, and customer documentation, for example.

What does your typical day involve?

I have a very busy schedule, but there’s a certain framework that I try my best to fit it. We’re Agile, so every morning we have the Design stand-up where we communicate what every member of the team is doing at the moment and discuss the flow of tickets. We also have Agile stand-ups for all other projects, most of these involving the Design Shop (as we call our team), so one of us must be there to update the other teams. I try to schedule all my meetings in the morning so I can use the afternoon for research and design.

How important is UX at On The Beach and why is it valued?

On The Beach has been around for almost 8 years and it grew very rapidly. A couple of years ago they began to understand the need to pay more attention to the experiences and the usability. I was brought on board as the first designer focusing on the UX, we had a good six months changing the culture to accept and understand a bit more about this need. But, to be honest, this change was painless and smooth, as the directors were (and are) open to new solutions that could improve the website and our client’s experience. We have a lot of room to develop, to research, and to propose new ideas. It’s a wonderful place to work and it’s a thrill to be doing UX design at this moment in time at a company like On The Beach.

You work to an agile development process. Why and how does UX fit into this process?

I guess that is the biggest challenge. Agile is awesome but historically it tends to treat design and the experience as something frivolous or secondary. One of my goals is to raise awareness of how better it is to deal with usage challenges from the start instead of doing it rapidly and then having to re-do it. On the otherhand, when we are testing and prototyping, we use Agile principles and it works really well to prove (or disprove) assumptions from a very early stage, without having to spend much time in development for example.

What tools do you work with?

Primarily with paper and pencil – it’s how everything starts!. Then I move to a PC. I find it easier to talk to the network and to other technologies with a PC. But, we have all sorts of platforms in our team; Windows, iOS, Ubuntu, Android…
When it comes to software I use many different ones. The whole Adobe suite of course – and I mean the whole suite! I’ve used Visio in the distant past, then I moved to Axure and Balsamiq, but because of the dynamics here at On The Beach I now mainly use Illustrator for my low-fi wireframes as I’ve accumulated an extensive library of symbols and actions… 🙂 Plus a lot of on-the-fly coding on the console and notepad, and also other online tools like UXPin, Litmus, JSFiddle, etc.

Responsive is a terminology that I don’t really subscribe to. There are two ways to see this issue. Firstly, like we all used to test our websites, years ago on different browsers and systems, and get charts of usage of monitor sizes and resolutions, we now should make sure this product performs well in all possible environments – the mobile, the tablet, the internet tv, the laptop, etc, in all browsers and all systems. Nothing has changed – the game is just a bit harder now.

Secondly, different products have different needs and different platforms have different needs. The very first version of Tetris I’ve ever played was called Nyet. Tetris is a classic game that existed in any possible platform, even portable ones like Gameboy. Have you tried to play Tetris on the mobile? It changed the whole dynamic and usability of the game. So having a webapp whose functionality is the same on different platforms, but with some adjustments to the grid depending on the screen size, is not something I take for granted.

I always challenge the concept of mobile apps, for different reasons. I don’t think it’s always the best way to serve your product to a client. I have a parallel career as a DJ and record producer, and the music market is flooded with Mobile Apps. I don’t see it as a great tool to serve content. I see it mainly as a badge on your mobile screen, saying to the world and yourself that you’re are a big fan of artist or band xyz. I think mobile apps – the ones you download, and that updates itself when you’re connected to the wifi – are more interesting when your product is a tool and that you think the user will use it enough times to justify its download and space on screen and internal memory.

With On The Beach there are two main factors that made us not to choose this route. Firstly we are so dynamic when it comes to software development, making at least two deploys per week, that an app from us would be constantly updating, and that wouldn’t be the best experience for the user – think Acrobat Reader, when was the last time it didn’t tell you it needs updating? 🙂 The second reason is accessibility. Although we have a significant number of customers choosing us as their online travel agent more than once a year, plus all the people that come back from their holidays and come to us to book their next ones – and that would justify an On The Beach app as a tool – we wanted to use our efforts and energy on something that would serve everybody. For example, users coming from Google or Bing, a link on Facebook, a suggestion of a friend or a specialist site like Trip Advisor (that sends us hundreds of users every day). Instead, we made an entirely new website, just for the mobile, that you don’t need to download or upkeep. It’s there for anyone with a connection and it works really well.

Describe an example of the work involved from design through to implementation?

I think the design process is the same on every branch of design. From designing a chair to a party flyer, from a shopping cart experience to a car. We have an idea, then some high level analysis, then research, concept, testing and finally wireframing. Then back to the research.

How important is research to OTB? How did the Keep It Usable research feed into the agile development process and how did the feedback help to shape the software?

Research is fundamental to my work and to the company. We are constantly analysing data and testing the best way to do everything. When it comes to our mobile website we did extensive research, and Keep It Usable was a major part of it. We had instant feedback on certain features that are paramount to the mobile experience. I would go to the lab with Keep It Usable in the morning, and in the afternoon I’d be writing tickets to change things – in the best Agile practice.

What are your favourite UX-related resources?

I have way too many bookmarks, rss and twitter feeds, but I think the benefits from other people or companies experiences come from knowing the whole case. This is why I love to go to meetings and talks, I’m very active at #NUX, and I try to go to all UX conventions I can. It’s a good way to get to know people in the industry, but mainly I do it to hear the cases straight from the horses mouth. A button being small or big, positioned left or right, its colours… it doesn’t mean anything without data, without knowing the purposes and goals that were briefed.

Would you like to work with us?

Keep It Usable help many different kinds of companies to understand their users. We conduct research with real people and design interfaces using an evidence-based approach; every element has reasoning.